Title: When I Lay Me Down to Sleep (part 7/?)
Author: Neena (varscona_pal@yahoo.ca)
Pairing: G/B
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: The characters and Buffyverse belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, Mutant Enemy, etc. This little ficlet is for fun only.
Feedback: Pretty please? I’m an addict!
Setting: Season 3, before Angel and Faith come into play.
Summary: Everybody needs to sleep, but even sleeping can be dangerous when you live on a Hellmouth.
Warning: non-consensual sex. Violence.
He spent the better part of the day sitting at the table, thinking. No matter how he looked at it, one thing remained the same. He had to tell Buffy.
It would be cruel to let her discover her pregnancy on her own—the confusion and fear that would cause would be insurmountable. She needed to know he was the father and how it had all happened.
Giles had no idea how she might react to the news, but he expected she might never want to speak to him again. It could very well mean the end of his career, his duties as her watcher, and their friendship. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to face, but he owed her the truth. As for what to do about the baby, that was something they would have to work out together—if she would let him help her.
It was dinner time when he finally gathered enough courage to face her. He drove to her house and was greeted at the door by her mother.
“Mr. Giles, I’m so glad you’re here. Please come in,” she said.
“Mrs. Summers,” he greeted her awkwardly as he entered.
“Buffy’s up in her room. She’s been up there all day—won’t even try to eat. I’m worried about her. Maybe she’ll listen to you if you tell her she’s got to eat.”
“I’ll do what I can,” he said and headed up to her room before she could see the look of guilt on his face.
He knocked on Buffy’s door.
“Mom, I’m not hungry. I’ll eat later, I promise.”
“Buffy, it’s me,” said Giles through the door. It quickly swung open and Buffy pulled him into a hug. It had become their ritual greeting over the last couple of weeks, but this time, Giles didn’t hug her back.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, sensing his uneasiness.
“I think you’d better sit down, Buffy,” he said gravely.
She knew it was bad, whatever it was, and she suddenly felt self-conscious about being dressed in her pyjamas. She sat on the end of the bed and unconsciously grabbed Mr.Gordo and started fidgeting with the toy.
Giles drew up her desk chair and sat facing her. Memories of his last visit to this room invaded his thoughts and he found himself at a loss for words. He steepled his fingers together and tried to concentrate.
Buffy could feel the tension rise off him in waves. Then it occurred to her what this might be about.
“Oh, God, Giles—did Willow say something to you? I can’t believe she would tell you. She promised she would never tell anyone!” Her face flushed hotly and she gripped Mr.Gordo until its stuffing nearly popped out its eyes.
“This has nothing to do with Willow. At least not directly.” She relaxed her grip on the little pig and shifted on the bed. “Buffy…” he faltered, losing his nerve as her large, trusting eyes lifted up to meet him.
“Just spit it out, Giles. You suck at keeping secrets.”
Giles plucked the glasses off his face and held them loosely in his hands. “I want you to know, right off, that I wanted to tell you everything from the start, and I would have if hadn’t thought it would put your life in jeopardy. Do you remember the demon you killed—the one that turned into a cloud of purple smoke?” He started from the beginning, ploughing through the most graphic parts quickly, as much for his own sake as for hers.
Buffy listened intently, hardly moving as Giles’ gentle voice spoke words that would irrevocably change the course of her life. She would have found the whole thing unbelievable if it weren’t for those horrible dreams. Now that she knew they hadn’t been dreams at all—that this demon had invaded and made her do such cruel things to Giles—she felt like she would never feel clean again.
Giles finished by relating Willow’s findings on the Changeling demon. He cast his eyes warily at his young slayer and saw in her glassy-eyed expression the mirror image of his own inner turmoil. They sat for a while in silence as Buffy let it all sink in.
She finally stood and went over to the window, pressing her forehead to the cool glass. That’s when the tears came. Giles hesitated before joining her at the window, catching her eye in the window’s reflection.
“I can’t do this Giles. I want it out of me. Get it out of me!” she shrieked. Her hands flew to her mouth and she ran from the room. Giles ran after her, following her to the bathroom where she collapsed to her knees at the toilet and threw up what little food there was in her stomach.
Giles knelt next to her on the cold tile floor and held her blond hair out of the way as wave after wave of nausea racked her body. He calmly stroked her back with his free hand, all the while whispering soothing words to her.
Her mother arrived, drawn by Buffy’s cry and the flurry of footsteps from above. She assessed the situation in a heartbeat and promptly handed Giles a cool, wet cloth to put on the back of Buffy’s neck.
Once the dry heaving passed, Joyce helped Giles get Buffy back into bed. Joyce left to get her a glass of water, and Giles was about to leave, too, but Buffy grasped him by the hand.
“Don’t leave me, Giles,” she pleaded, her eyes standing out brightly against the darkened skin around them.
“I should go. Your mother will look after you now.”
“Please, don’t leave me,” she repeated, nearing desperation. “I can’t do this without you. Promise you won’t leave me?”
Giles realized she meant it in the permanent sense, and his heart nearly broke to see her so upset. He sat back down on her bed and she threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in the comforting warmth of his chest.
“Buffy, I promise I will never leave you,” he said, his deep voice resonating in his chest. “No matter what happens, I will always be here for you—you mean more to me than anything else in the world.”
He gently lay her head down on her pillow, and used his thumbs to dry the tears from her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Giles,” she said softly.
“Whatever for?” he asked.
“For what I did to you…for what it made me do to you.”
“You did nothing wrong. There was nothing you could have done to stop this, so you must never blame yourself.”
“That goes for you too, you know.”
Giles lowered his eyes; “I’m your watcher, I should have been able to stop it.”
Joyce came back in with a tall glass of ice water. She sat down on the other side of the bed and felt Buffy’s forehead with the back of her hand.
“Mom!” Buffy complained, but smiled nonetheless at the comforting, motherly gesture.
“Sorry, sweetie. It’s a natural instinct. No matter how old you get, I’ll never stop thinking of you as my little baby.”
Buffy and Giles both flinched at the comment, but Joyce didn’t notice. She was too busy fussing over bed sheets and plumping pillows.
Giles took his leave a short while later, after ensuring Buffy that he’d be by in the morning to check on her. When he got home, he went into the kitchen and poured himself a double scotch, drained it in one gulp, then poured himself another. The alcohol burned a trail to his stomach where it radiated outward like a furnace. He wouldn’t get drunk tonight—he would consider that a betrayal of Buffy’s trust—but never before had he felt such a need to drink himself into oblivion. He summoned up the will to replace the bottle on its shelf and sipped the second drink slowly. He set about making something to eat; not because he was hungry, but because it gave him something mundane to do to keep him busy.
Buffy lay staring up at the ceiling holding the phone in her hands. She hadn’t moved in twenty minutes, trying to decide if she should call Willow. She felt so alone, so hollowed out and scared. She needed to talk to someone, and Willow was her best friend, but Willow knew everything and would want her to talk about it. Buffy didn’t know if she could handle that conversation right now. She stared at the phone and watched as her fingers worked on auto-pilot and dialled a number.
“Hello?” Hearing Giles at the other end of the line immediately filled the void she’d been feeling. The only trouble was that she hadn’t actually planned on calling him, and now she didn’t know what to say.
“Hello?” Giles repeated. “Buffy, is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me,” she answered timidly.
“Are you alright?”
“All things considered, I’ve had better days. Sorry to call so late; I just…This is silly—I know I just saw you, but…I needed to hear your voice again.”
“I don’t think it’s silly at all. I’m glad you called.”
“You are?”
“Don’t sound so surprised. I’ve been worrying myself sick over you—of course I’m glad you called.”
“Oh,” she said, a trace of disappointment in her voice. It was just worry he felt. Nothing more.
“Buffy, are you sure you’re alright? Is there anything I can do?”
“You could keep me company on the phone until I fall asleep. That would help. That is, if you wouldn’t mind?”
“I’d be more than happy to keep you company. What would you like to talk about?” he asked.
“Tell me a story—anything will do, as long as it doesn’t involve demons of any kind. Tell me about your life before Sunnydale.”
Giles complied, flattered at her interest. He talked about his childhood and the years of tedious training he endured under the care of his father and the rest of the watchers. He told her how glorious he felt when he told them all to stuff it and ran off to London.
Buffy knew he was editing out the more painful events of his past, deliberately sticking to the happier memories, which was exactly what she needed right now. She found herself absorbed in his narrative, imagining what he must have looked like in the Seventies—all tight jeans and leather jackets. At some point the images in her head blotted out the room around her and she drifted off to sleep, the sound of Giles’ soft English tones coming from the phone next to her ear on the pillow.
Giles had got as far as his job interview with the British Museum, when he heard Buffy’s slow, steady breathing coming from the other end. He didn’t hang up, though. Instead, he lay the receiver down on the pillow next to him, feeling better knowing he’d be there for her if she needed him.
He awoke sometime in the night to the quiet sound of a person moaning. Disoriented, it took him a while to realize the sounds were coming from the phone on his pillow. He fumbled with the receiver in his hurry to clasp it to his ear.
“Buffy? Can you hear me?” he asked.
The moaning continued unabated. He listened carefully, trying to determine what was happening at the other end. Before long he recognized the moans as sounds of pleasure, not pain. Relief washed through him, knowing she wasn’t in danger. Then he felt embarrassed guilt for having eavesdropped on such an intensely private moment, and even more guilt for the way his body was responding to those sounds.
She was whimpering, breathing hard; then there was the sound of rustling sheets as she turned over and the moaning started again. She was asleep, he realized—reacting to whatever fantasies inhabit a teenage girl’s mind. The thought occurred to him that she was most likely dreaming about Angel, and it was like someone had dropped a bucket of ice water on his lap.
He was about to hang up the phone when he heard Buffy’s voice, weak and breathy with passion:
“Giles! Uhhnnnn…mmm…mmm…mmm…oh God, oh God, Giles!” He heard the sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line, his cock instantly swelling in response. He dropped the receiver as if it was on fire.
He floundered, disturbed at how intensely aroused he’d become. He hoped it was merely conditioning—that his body had simply reacted to Buffy out of familiarity. He wasn’t sure which he found more frightening—that he’d gotten excited by Buffy, or that the demon’s abuse of his body had imprinted this behaviour in him as if he were Pavlov’s dog.
Giles scrambled off the bed and hurried down to the bathroom where he ran a cool shower. He stripped out of his pyjama pants, exposing the offending erection, and stepped into the tub. The cold water hit him like a slap in the face, and as his teeth chattered he chastised himself for being so weak. Buffy needed him now more than ever. But she needed him to be her watcher—dependable, trustworthy and loyal. What she didn’t need was him lusting after her like some hormonal schoolboy. Especially in her current state of mind; he could never allow himself to take advantage of her feelings for him.
The shower served its purpose and also left him wide awake in the middle of the night. He went back to his bedroom, gave the discarded telephone a withering look, and then picked out a book from his bookcase. He settled into bed with a well-thumbed copy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame—a story he knew verbatim, yet never tired of reading.
He awoke the next morning with his bedside lamp on and the book laid open on his chest. Then he heard Buffy calling him and he picked up the phone.
“…ake up Giles. You there? Come on, wake up already.”
“I’m here, Buffy. I’m awake.” Giles rubbed the crust out of his eyes and blinked at his alarm clock. It was only six-thirty. On a Sunday. He groaned inwardly.
“About time, too. You’ve gotta come over, Giles.”
“Right now?” he asked, trying not to sound whiny.
“I’ve been sick to my stomach since five in the morning. Mom just woke up and found me in the bathroom. She freaked and she wants to take me to the doctor. Now. I told her I wouldn’t go unless you came with. Will you come? I want you to be there.”
“Of course, I’ll be there as soon as I can. But Buffy—what reason did you give your mother for wanting me along?”
“I…uh…didn’t really giver her a reason. Just told her I wanted you to come.”
“She’ll be suspicious. Are you prepared to tell her the truth if she asks? Or would you rather we decide on a cover story until we find a better time to tell her?”
“I don’t know, Giles. I don’t know anything right now. All I know is that I need you with me.”
“Then I’m on my way. And I’ll follow your lead with your mother.”
“Thanks, Giles,” she said.
“Buffy?” Joyce’s voice sounded in the background.
“And hurry, please,” Buffy added in a whisper before hanging up.